Alarm bells rang before the bombs

The bombings in Bali would have come as no surprise to the United States. It has been warning the Indonesians about terrorist activity in their country for a year, writes Marian Wilkinson.

Shortly after the anniversary of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, President George Bush made a discreet telephone call to President Megawati Sukarnopurtri. The President's message repeated similar advice that the US, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines had been giving to the Indonesian leader for almost a year - she had to tackle the terrorism threat in her own country.

The Indonesian Government was annoyed when America closed its embassy in Jakarta on the anniversary of September 11 because of what it saw as credible terrorist threats. The Australian Government also closed its mission in East Timor. At the same time, the White House sent an emissary - Karen Brooks, an Indonesia specialist who speaks Bahasa and knows Megawati - to reiterate Bush's message.

Yet just days later, when a grenade exploded near the house of a US diplomat in Jakarta, Indonesian police quickly discounted US concerns that the act was linked to a terrorist threat.

The clearly aggrieved US ambassador in Jakarta, Ralph Boyce, posted a message on the embassy website on September 26, urging Americans and other Westerners to "avoid large gatherings and locations known to cater primarily to a Western clientele such as certain bars, restaurants and tourist areas".

Days earlier, the US embassy issued a similar warning telling Westerners to avoid the historic city of Yogyakarta because they "may be targeted for violence in the immediate future".

A little more than two weeks later, the bombs exploded in Bali, killing an untold number of Australians, Britons and other foreigners, and local people.

On Monday, Indonesian officials acknowledged for the first time that al Qaeda was a serious problem in the country, and linked the appalling attack to the terrorist group. Yet for almost a year, the US and Indonesia's ASEAN allies have been warning that al Qaeda had not only forged deep links in Indonesia, but that the terrorist group was gathering strength.

Western intelligence officials were sounding the alarm at growing evidence that al Qaeda operatives, under pressure in other countries, had found sanctuary in Indonesia. There is no doubt that the Australian Government was fully abreast of these concerns under its intelligence-sharing arrangements with the US and ASEAN nations.

In November last year Admiral Dennis Blair, the US Commander in Chief of the Pacific, went to Jakarta to step up the intelligence exchange and cooperation in the war on al Qaeda. He told Indonesia that it had "to be concerned about international terrorists coming here and setting up operations".

He said there was already intelligence that a South-East Asia mujahideen brigade, which had fought in Afghanistan in the 1980s, had returned to Indonesia.

The US visit did put some pressure on the Indonesians. The following month, Indonesia's intelligence chief stated publicly that al Qaeda had set up training camps in Sulawesi, where Muslim jihad groups have been attacking Christians. But he insisted the groups were not involved in the attacks outside Indonesia and he did not need US assistance.

Soon after, in a major embarrassment for Indonesia, Singapore arrested 15 Islamic militants from the extremist Muslim organisation, Jemaah Islamiah (JI), whose chief operations officer is Nurjaman Riduan Isamuddin, a Kuwaiti with strong links in Indonesia, who goes by the name Hambali.

Singaporean intelligence said they had been given a videotape found in an al Qaeda house in Afghanistan revealing a plot to bomb Western embassies in Singapore, including the Australian high commission. They said the group had cells in Malaysia and Indonesia and for the first time named the prominent Indonesian cleric, Abu Bakar Bashir, as the power behind the JI in Indonesia.

Indonesian authorities brought in Bashir for questioning but quickly released him.

The US ambassador to Singapore offered his support and publicly criticised Indonesia, quoting reports that some of the suspected terrorists had fled there. But Indonesia again denied there was any evidence of terrorist links in the country, while at the same time signing a pact with Australia to fight international terrorism.

By now the FBI had linked al Qaeda associates in Malaysia to the September 11 attacks, and had information that Osama bin Laden was expanding his network in South-East Asia. According to Singaporean authorities, one of those then arrested in Malaysia had ordered four tonnes of ammonium nitrate for making bombs - and it was missing.

Soon after, Philippine authorities arrested another Indonesian explosives expert, Fathur Rahman al Ghozi, deepening concerns that Islamic extremist groups were forcing alliances throughout the region. The US then sent 660 soldiers, including Navy Seals and Green Berets, to the Philippines.

By late February Singapore and Indonesia were publicly arguing about the terrorism problem, with Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew claiming that the masterminds of Jemaah Islamiah operatives were still at large in Indonesia and that the danger to Singapore would go away only when "the nests of al Qaeda-trained operatives around us were broken up".

Lee's statement sparked protests and demonstrations in Jakarta including pickets outside the Singaporean embassy. A team of Indonesian police investigators claimed to find no evidence of the terrorist links alleged by Singapore and Malaysia. In May, as concerns in the US deepened, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld met his Indonesian counterpart at the Pentagon and announced he was looking at ways to re-establish military-to-military relationships with Indonesia. The hope was that cooperation would work, despite claims that some militant Islamic groups had deep links inside the military itself.

Just days later, on June 5, Indonesian authorities arrested Omar al-Faruq, a 31-year-old Kuwaiti living in Indonesia, who had been named by al Qaeda prisoners detained in Afghanistan as a key operative in Indonesia. After being handed over to the US, Al-Faruq was taken to an American air base in Bagram, Afghanistan, for interrogation over the next three months.

According to several reports, including one by Time magazine, on September 9, al-Faruq confessed to planning large-scale attacks against US interests in Indonesia and throughout South-East Asia. His confessions triggered the terrorist alert issued by President Bush just before the September 11 anniversary.

Al-Faruq reportedly confessed that he worked in Indonesia with Jemaah Islamiah and was associated with Abu Bakar Bashir.

Despite Bashir's repeated denials that he was not involved with terrorism, al-Faruq reportedly said the cleric directed JI and allocated his operatives and resources to terrorist plots. But still, the Indonesian Government resisted any moves to detain the politically powerful cleric, saying there was no evidence against him.

Throughout August and September, US officials, from the White House through to the US ambassador in Indonesia, expressed their exasperation with the Indonesian Government over its refusal to crack down on terrorist activity in the country.

The upsurge in terrorist plots in Indonesia spurred the US Government to push, with Australia, for the full restoration of military cooperation with Indonesia, hoping it would boost the effort in Indonesia to crack down on terrorism. Military ties had been severed during Indonesia's violent campaign to hold East Timor.

Two days before the deadly bombing in Bali, the US State Department issued its latest warning on terrorism. It was a "world-wide caution" prompted in part by the distribution of new audio tapes of Osama bin Laden and his closest deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri to the satellite TV channel, Al Jazeera.

The warning was posted by the US embassy in Jakarta and told Americans in Indonesia that, "as security is increased at official US facilities, terrorists and their sympathisers will seek softer targets". These included clubs, restaurants and recreation areas where Americans are known to congregate.

The warning was one of several made available to Australia. The day after it was issued, Attorney-General Daryl Williams announced that the US had passed warning of possible terrorist actions to Australia but said the targets mentioned were energy production facilities and transmission lines.

Counter-terrorism experts in the US were saying openly they feared the new messages from al Qaeda were a signal that the terrorist organisation had regrouped and was preparing for a new round of attacks. The shooting of US marines in Kuwait and the apparent sabotage of a French tanker off Yemen provided the evidence that al Qaeda was reactivating, they said. The bombings in Bali happened all too soon after that.